A Brief History on Wizarding Kind
by TheDullYellowEye
Summary: Because, when it came down to it, Lord Voldemort actually wasn't the worst thing out there. It was a mercy killing and a bitter pill to swallow; to see what the human race could do to itself. Meeting Harry prequel. See DullYellowEye on AO3 for more info.


_So, basically, I was going to write a multichap, linear-type, story-thing to follow up/merge with Meeting Harry. But the plot bunnies wouldn't play ball (and trust me, I've been throwing a fair few balls at them to try and get them to partake) So what is going to happen instead is I'm going to post this, then possibly a 'welcome aboard' fic and then I'm going to rewatch all of TOS and shameless insert Harry into the storylines. Because I'm boss like that. And also because this 'verse refuses to be linear so episode-ness is the closest we're going to get._

_You DO NOT need to read Meeting Harry to understand this. In fact I rather suspect it'd make more sense if you read this fic first. Enjoy ;D_

* * *

><p><strong>A Brief History on Wizarding Kind<br>**

Sometimes Harry didn't know why he bothered.

Dumbledore had given him an option once. He'd said that, if Harry wanted, he could stay dead. He could catch a train somewhere, perhaps. To see his parents. To the undying land. He didn't know. He hadn't chosen that option. He'd come back. He'd come back to save the day, just like he always did.

Voldemort had broken every wizarding law he possibly could. He'd revealed the existence of magic to muggles and, Merlin, how they'd reacted! First there was fear and apprehension. Voldemort had killed hundreds, thousands of people, regardless of magic or blood status. He'd lost too much of his soul by then. He'd never been particularly sensible, had the Dark Lord. For in his plan to decimate and destroy Muggles and all that they stood for, he had forgotten on key thing; there were millions more Muggles than there were magic folk.

And they were so _clever_. The wizarding world had got caught in the age of candles and pumpkins and parchment, while Muggles forged on and on and on, never ending in their pursuit of knowledge. They might not have magic, but _Avada Kedavra_ took will power and purpose to cast. Any fool could shoot a gun.

The Muggles had herded them like cattle. They'd trapped wizards and witches with their own tricks - not able to apparate in places like Hogwarts? Let them run their and hide! Sanctuaries became prisons and beacons of hope became fractured and tortured - broken toys at the hands of people wizards had always looked down on.

And the things they did! Taking DNA, forcing their women to carry children they didn't want, violating their magic. They took men and forced half-formed foetuses into their bodies in the hope they might carry to term. They cut open adults and children alike looking for the reason why, why, _why_. For everything. How did magic work, they asked. How could they create the impossible?

Harry, Hermione, Ron, Ginny, Draco, Blaise and a rag tag band of the old Hogwarts crew threw aside old prejudices and worked together; the team unity of Hufflepuff, the intelligence of Ravenclaw, the cunning of Slytherin and the bravery of Gryffindor. Between them they had fought a war, a war that went beyond the Dark and Light fights of their parents. Lucius Malfoy was as good as Remus Lupin, Bellatrix Lestrange the same as Minerva McGonagall. Voldemort himself brought to his knees by the obdurate curiosity of Muggles.

The prophecy came true, Harry defeated the Dark Lord. But it was not the great victory everyone had foreseen it to be, rather it was a mercy killing of the battered remnants that couldn't really be called a person. For, when the Muggles discovered Voldemort couldn't die - why hold back? No, the greater demons took much more effort to destroy.

That was when Hermione had whispered in his ear about spaceships. Not advanced enough, yet, to take large numbers of people long distances, and magic would eventually wear the systems down, but what's to say magic couldn't be the crutch they needed to limp from this planet to another? One away from the boundless cruelty of Muggles, where wizards could fight with wizards, where monstrosities could happen, but at least their children would be safe. No one must touch the children.

Harry had become their leader - there was no room for voting and Ministries here - so he chose to take that risk. In one, massive raid, they freed all of the magic folk they could from muggles. Those they could not save, they killed. They gathered the wizards and witches, sorcerers, mages and prophets of the world to one place and they had left. An entire planet of wizarding people, leaving in one, crowded ship.

The journey had been long and arduous, but eventually they had made it. It couldn't be any of the planets in Earth's Solar System. Nor the neighbouring ones. Ten long years they travelled together in a space ship and with each passing year it became painfully obvious that when Harry chose not to die it was not a temporary choice. It was one that would stay with him for Merlin-knew how long. Harry only hoped that it wouldn't be forever.

When they reached their planet, their new home, they settled in immediately. Most who had been hurt by the muggles had recovered sufficiently in the years of their travel to be able to slip back into a relatively normal routine, but for those who were too physically, mentally or magically damaged to live on their own, hospitals were built. Wards made powerful by an entire race of humans blanketed the planet. They would be safe here. They would make it safe.

Once houses were being built and schools started opening and the herbology inclined folk, led by a haggard looking Sprout and a one-legged Neville, had started growing forests, Harry planned once again. They had escaped, but they had left behind dragons and hippogriffs, snidgets and unicorns. If their world were to thrive they would need potions. And for potions they needed the creatures that gave themselves to them. So Harry recruited the help of the Ravenclaw Quadrant to plot the route they had taken, the planets that were closest together.

Then, he had kissed Ginny and said goodbye to everyone before, once more, throwing his life recklessly into fate's hands. Apparation for long distances was not advised. 'long distance' did not even cover how far Harry travelled. He made it back to Earth in one piece, but barely.

Space travel had advanced significantly in the years wizards had been gone, and the wars they'd fought in had come to an end. Harry was not likely to forget the horrors he'd seen, however, and worked quickly to get his task done. Goblins, centaurs and vampires worked with him to get all the creatures and plants they possibly could on board the next ship and they left only a year later, leaving only the meanest of traces behind. If anyone were to look for the wizarding world on Earth now, they would find no proof. And old man sat at a café with a wooden stick, declaring he could create water from nothing. Sleight of hand, you'd think. A fast gold bird, almost too fast to see, darting about with long tongue and tasting flowery nectar. An escaped canary, perhaps?

Their journey to the new planet was long, again, but not nearly so long as the first journey. There was no desperate outpouring of magic to try and keep the box of screws together - the ship worked fine on its own. But it was still seven long years of only magical creatures to keep him company. Harry respected Goblins, but they talked of naught but gold and how they had been forced to leave most of it behind. He respected Centaurs, but they were a depressing species who moaned for seven years about how the stars they knew would no longer be able to guide them.

It was a huge relief to step onto Wizard territory again. Until he saw his friends. He missed them, Lord, how he'd missed them! But nearly nine years apart and the fact that Harry couldn't die was drawn into sharp focus. He had aged to about twenty, then stopped. They all nearly forty now. And the children! Oh, his sweet children. James and Albus and sweet little Lily whom he hadn't known existed when he'd left. But they were Hogwarts age now. He didn't look old enough to be their father. He felt old enough to be their great grandfather.

He had loved them; his friends and his family and the people he had once called enemies. He loved them all, every last one. But how he hated them. How he envied them. They grew and they aged and he had to watch, lonely and ancient and young as they died, one by one, until there were none who remained who remembered him as Harry, just Harry. Because on this planet - the world of his own making where he had led them to on a magical exodus - here he would always be their King. Even his children and his children's children and his children's children's children… he would never be just a man. He would be a hero. His name was a legend, a whisper. And while it remained so this would be a peaceful planet.

Because when there lived an ancient King who never died and had sacrificed his own death to keep them alive and happy, they would not fight. There were quarrels and brawls and family feuds - how could there not be? But there was no war. Because just the sight of their long-lived hero brought shame to the hearts of the people.

And how Harry hated it. He walked among them as a ghost. He didn't know them, couldn't bare to bring himself to. Because he might blink and they might die. They stood in awe of him, they could not be his friends. They were his children and he hated them. He was tired - so tired by all of it. He wondered, silently, longingly, if there was a way to end his curse. If he could sleep, just - sleep.

Then one day, after many more years than Harry cared to count, the monotony broke. And through the haze of loathed beloveds he caught a glimpse of the future the muggles had crafted for themselves. It felt wrong to tempt such fate - after all, had muggles not been the reason they had left? - but Harry reached out his tendrils of magic and sent a blink of a compulsion. Not a massive amount. Just enough to suggest they turn this way. Just enough to attract their attention.

It would take them a while, a few years or more, perhaps, to come this way, but what were two years, or three, or four? They meant nothing. So Harry smiled and sat back and waited, preparing his people for a life without his constant support. Hopefully, with a little bit of luck, he would gradually slip from their memories and becoming nothing more than an old fairytale told to children. He looked forward to that day.


End file.
